


Whatever We've Become

by 35-leukothea (35_leukothea)



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Abduction Arc, Angst, F/M, MSR, Season/Series 02, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 06:51:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7034398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/35_leukothea/pseuds/35-leukothea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just weeks after her abduction, Mulder is awoken by strange noises before dawn to find a feverish Scully out cold on his couch, with no explanation as to how she got there or why she came.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whatever We've Become

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, given the chronology of season 2, I think we can all agree that that month-long quarantine after 2.09 "Firewalker" (the volcano episode) didn't _really_ happen—so, yes, I'm ignoring the convolution of continuity errors that pops up right around November 1994. That said, this takes place sometime pretty soon after that episode. Second of all, I actually had a really fun time writing this, and I hope you guys enjoy reading it! It was a much needed respite from studying/preparing for my exams these past two weeks. (Although who knows what state it's in technically. I need a beta.)  
>  Love from Beth

It’s 4:19 a.m., she’s soaked to the bone, and she has no idea what she’s doing here.

She knocks, because when you call on someone, you knock. There’s no answer. She fumbles with her key, drops it, then tries to pick it up and is unsuccessful twice. On the third go she stops trying to be delicate and grabs it and shoves it into the lock. She turns it the wrong way, then the right way, then falls through the door.

The soft glow of the fish tank is all that illuminates the room, but it’s enough to see there’s no one on the couch. She strips off her waterlogged jacket, shuddering, and nearly trips kicking off her shoes. She has enough sensibility left to lock the door behind her before pulling the blanket off the back of the couch and collapsing.

 

* * *

 

Her alarm goes off at 5:50, and she screams.

She realizes, instantly, that it was a mistake—it’s just her watch—but it’s too late. The panic has set in, seized her by the throat as it rushes beneath her skin and lays siege to her brain. It shows her a place she knows well, more intimately than her own home, locked away in the dark, quiescent depths of her mind in a prison kept by memory. It’s whirling around her, and images and sensations blend together in a vicious attack on her sanity and she’s falling and falling and the walls are getting closer, why are they getting closer, what is that shining thing glaring down at her and _what is that God-awful noise—_

“ _Scully!_ ”

She gasps. The white is gone.

“Scully, it’s okay. It’s okay.”

Mulder is inches from her face. He looks terrible, like worry is all that’s keeping him awake, and she feels bad about it on a hundred different levels. He sighs, and the sensory region of her brain jerks awake as his breath touches her cheeks. She can feel one of his hands cupping the back of her neck and the other supporting her shoulder as he leans over her.

Fighting her broken voice, she says, “I want to sit up.”

He backs away immediately, his hands slipping out from behind her to hover lightly at her elbows, not quite holding her but close enough to catch a mistake. Her chest is still heaving and her head spins like a carousel coming to a slow, agonizing stop, but she knows where she is now and her blood is less electric. She wonders if this is what happened to Mulder in Puerto Rico to make him believe what he did.

“How do you feel?” he asks.

“That’s a bullshit question.”

He draws back very slightly and blinks, eyes wide. Scully feels bad again—she has no idea where that came from.

“Sorry,” she mumbles. “I don’t…”

“Don’t what?” he asks, leery.

She hesitates. “ _Know_? I don’t know. What am I doing here?”

“I could ask you the same. Really—are you alright?”

She glances around before answering. It’s nearly dawn already, thanks to the genius way time zones are set up, so it’s relatively bright. She can see various articles of clothing strewn about the room in typical Mulder fashion, and there’s a tympanic thermometer lying on the coffee table. “I’m fine,” she says.

He looks like he doesn’t believe her. _Not without good reason_ , she admits to herself.

“If you don’t want to explain,” he says, “just tell me so.”

“I can’t.”

There’s a moment’s pause, and Scully realizes she stopped her sentence too early, and now neither of them knows what she meant. She shakes her head slightly, glancing away.

“I didn’t mean to—cause a stir,” she mumbles.

“Do you want to shower?”

“Do I—what?”

“Shower,” Mulder repeats. “It’s been storming since midnight. You came in sopping wet. Or do you want something to eat? Do you want to sleep more?”

“Um…water. Please.”

He nods and does as she’s asked. Scully sighs heavily and flops back on the couch, her mind racing. What she’s looking for is at the forefront of her memory, but it’s being obstructed by a now familiar fear and that impossible whiteness. Why is she here? What happened earlier this morning? Hell, what happened _yesterday_? What day is it?

She decides not to articulate any of these questions to Mulder when he comes back with a glass of water and some biscuits, just continues to think silently as she eats. She remembers arriving, vaguely, but definitely doesn’t recall leaving her apartment in Georgetown nor how she ended up here. With some effort and some debate, she decides it’s Thursday, which means they should both be at work shortly and were both at work yesterday, though she can’t quite decide what case they’re on. Or are they in one of those strange periods of limbo where all they do is read books in the office and bicker and toss a baseball back and forth?

Suddenly she feels a touch on her forehead, and she starts—Mulder’s thumb is there, pressing down gently as he runs it across her brow.

“You’re scowling,” he says.

She wants with all her being to push his hand away, but for some reason hers won’t move. She fixes her face. “There.”

“Now it’s just your eyes.”

She goes right back to scowling, and he almost laughs, in a scared sort of way. “Please tell me what’s wrong.”

“When I know, you’ll know.”

“I’m going to hold you to that.”

“That shower sounds good now.”

He helps her to her feet, and for a moment she keels precariously, but the sensation passes and she finds her own way to the bathroom.

She’s been in here before, of course, but never to use the shower. It’s a little cramped and lit in that strange apartment bathroom way that is either blinding or useless depending on the angle, but there isn’t a bathtub painted a hideous shade of turquoise (ah, memories), so she deems it worthy. She takes two folded towels (very thin and scratchy) from the rack and sets them out, then hangs her clothes (sweatpants, an old U Maryland t-shirt, underwear, and socks) on various hooks and flat surfaces throughout the room. They’re not exactly dirty, seeing as all that got on them was rainwater, but she feels better knowing the steam from the shower will give them another quasi-wash.

She turns on the water and waits for the heat to kick in, yanking at the knots in her thick hair and knowing how annoying it’ll be to tear them all out. She’s relatively certain Mulder doesn’t have head lice (and if he does, she’s certainly got them by now, anyway), so she takes one of his combs into the shower with her.

She sighs again as the warm water hits her face and attempts once more to wrap her head around what’s happening, but this moment is getting in the way. All she can think about is her partner—Mulder’s shower, Mulder’s towels, Mulder’s soap, Mulder’s comb. The smell of his cheap drugstore shampoo is overwhelmingly, _illogically_ comforting, even though its label might as well be “Nondescript Cosmetic Scent” and she has no idea why she needs to be comforted. She’s still drowsy, and quickly loses track of time in the echoey little room, immersed in her own head and all the things she doesn’t know and all the things that remind her of Mulder. She’s almost sorry when she gets out, except she’s starting to overheat and is probably doing no favors for his water bill.

She dries off, wrings out her hair, and redresses, trying not to think too hard about one thing or another. She draws a little smiley face in the corner of the steamed-up bathroom mirror, then frowns at herself and wipes it away.

When she reenters Mulder’s bedroom she stops almost immediately, for two reasons: one, she has just been practically assaulted by cold air, and two, she has glimpsed something out the corner of her eye that looks quite suspicious and can’t tell what it is. She glances around and instantly spots what’s out of place—there’s an old t-shirt of his lying neatly on top of the dresser, folded so meticulously in such an unMulder-like fashion that she knows, she just knows he meant it for her.

The reasonable, coherent part of her brain puts forth a resounding _no, no, a thousand times no_ , but something simple and fundamental inside of her just wants to put on the damn shirt. _It’s a shirt, Dana. Cleaner than yours, anyway._

For a minute longer, she stares at it. Then she touches it. Then she picks it up and puts it back in his dresser, so he has no misconceptions about the decision she’s made, and returns to the living room.

“I called us in at work,” Mulder says as she enters. He’s sitting at his desk. “You’ve got the flu.”

“And what have you got?”

“The honor, privilege, and obligation of making sure my brilliant doctor friend actually takes care of herself. Or maybe some deadly volcanic parasite—one of the two.”

“Don’t joke,” she says, but there’s a small smile on her dry lips and he’s seen it.

“Don’t joke, yourself,” he shoots back. “You’ve got a reputation to keep up.”

“You didn’t have to make excuses for me,” she says, redirecting the conversation. “I could have still gone in.”

“I didn’t want you to.”

“Why not? What am I supposed to do all day now?”

He smirks. “It’s all part of my master plan.”

She doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction of being asked to explain his master plan, so she says, “Skinner will be pissed at you.”

“Doesn’t matter. You _are_ sick, Scully.”

She frowns at him. “I’m not.”

He points at the tympanic thermometer he still hasn’t put away. “99.8 degrees, baby.”

She rolls her eyes. “That’s not a fever, Mulder, that’s a hot flash.”

“Then come here and we’ll take it again.”

It’s a challenge. She raises an eyebrow and crosses her arms, unintimidated. “I just showered. Are you trying to skew the data?”

He laughs, delighted. “Oh, you know how I love to skew data.”

She smiles again, shaking her head slightly. “I feel fine, Mulder.”

“Do you remember how you got here?”

The question is so out of left field that for a moment, Scully thinks she misheard. Finally, she forces out, “What?”

Evidently, he takes this to mean she can’t remember. “I checked outside, but I didn’t see your car,” he continues, “and the only keys in your coat are yours and mine. I’m guessing you must’ve taken public transport and walked the rest of the way. Do you use the metro often?”

She clenches and unclenches her jaw, distinctly uncomfortable with the way he’s approaching this, as if she’s a subject in one of their cases. “Sometimes,” she says, fully aware of how unhelpful she’s being.

For a moment, he just watches her. Then, he asks, “Can you tell me what you do remember?”

She takes a deep breath and sits on the unmade couch, wishing she could just ignore him. “There’s not a lot of that.”

He’s wearing a vaguely irked expression that’s halfway between _stop avoiding the question_ and _I’m only trying to help_ , but he stays patient. “That’s alright, Dana. Take your time.”

The use of her first name touches a nerve somewhere, and she slouches in her seat—now she almost wants to hide, though whether from Mulder or from whatever happened earlier this morning, she can’t tell. “I remember…a lot of noise,” she says.

“A lot as in many different noises or as in one noise that was very loud?”

This is a very specific distinction. “Second one,” she says. “I think.”

“What kind of noise was it?”

“I don’t know. Grating. I can’t describe it.”

“And are you sure it was in your head?”

Scully cringes, wondering what sort of horrid thing could actually make such a sound. “Yes.”

Mulder nods. “Do you remember any visuals, anything that really stands out?”

For some reason, this answer comes easy. “Blue light. Bluish-green. Here.”

“Here?” he repeats. “Was it the fish tank?”

She glances at it, and suddenly a pang of fear rushes through her—she knows instantly it’s a memory of her hysteria. It feels so long ago, but the sensation is still strong. “Yes.”

“What about at your apartment? Anything out of the ordinary?”

She pictures her apartment, imagines walking through it, but everything is in place. “No.”

“Then I doubt it was triggered by the setting,” he decides. “It must have been something that actually happened. Something you touched, maybe? Or did you see something on the TV?”

Her pulse should have calmed down by now. She grips the blanket. “I don’t remember.”

Mulder eyes her warily. “You still doing okay, Dana?”

She winces again. “Don’t…”

He frowns. “Don’t what?”

“Call me that.”

There’s a slight pause; he seems surprised. “Oh,” he says, “I’m sorry. You’ve just never…”

“I know,” she says, eager to change the subject. It’s true she’s never overtly opposed him using her first name before, and she doesn’t want to try and explain why it feels so wrong right now. “Just—let’s go on.”

He shrugs, and continues his line of questioning. “Sure. Do you remember anything about being outside last night? The weather, the temperature, anything like that?”

Reluctantly, Scully admits, “I remember feeling hot.”

He raises an eyebrow, or attempts to—he’s been doing that more and more recently. “Fever hot?”

“Hot flash hot,” she insists. “Panicky hot. _Help me_ hot.”

Mulder blinks at her, but after a moment he’s regained his bearings. “Anything else?”

She looks down at her lap and fidgets with a tassel on the blanket. “I don’t think I would have remembered the storm if you hadn’t said something about it.”

“Really? That suggests some kind of sensory disconnect, if you didn’t feel the rain.”

“And I was—” She stops and restarts, putting together the memories as she speaks. “I couldn’t pick up my key. I kept dropping it and trying to put it in the door wrong.”

“You think you were relying entirely on sight?”

“Not entirely,” she says, “but heavily. It must’ve been a—a sort of crutch for my brain—”

Suddenly it all goes white.

“Scully?”

She screws her eyes shut, hard—after two excruciating seconds, the blinding light fades, and when she blinks Mulder’s apartment reappears before her. He’s up from his desk chair, looking almost as frightened as she’s ever seen him, and in another split-second he’s crouched on the floor in front of her, grasping her by the shoulders.

“It’s okay,” she says, before he can get a word in, and it’s true. “I’m fine.”

“What are you talking about?” he splutters. “You looked like you were going to black out!”

“It’s gone now, it’s passed. I promise, Mulder, I’m fine.”

He looks like he wants nothing less in the world than to believe her, but he lets go of her shoulders and sits up on the coffee table across from her. “Are you _sure?_ ”

“Yes.”

He bites his lip. “Will you at least let me retake your temperature now?”

She swallows a sigh, knowing it’ll make him feel better and maybe even get him off her back. “Alright,” she acquiesces. “I don’t know what it is you expect to find, though.”

He doesn’t reply, just reaches across the table for the thermometer and brushes Scully’s hair behind her ear. She feels vaguely like a child at the pediatrician’s, which is not something she’s used to.

The thermometer beeps. He holds it unnecessarily far away, so she can’t read it.

Grudgingly, he says, “98.7.”

“So _there_ ,” Scully snaps, feeling particularly spiteful. “You’re not going to try and convince a medical doctor that one tenth of a degree is a fever, are you?”

“Oh, don’t you start,” he grumbles. “ _Medical doctor_. Hmph.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to check my vitals, too?”

“You shouldn’t make fun of people who are worried about you.”

“I’ll make fun of anyone I like.”

Then, to her surprise, Mulder hugs her. It’s quick, but it’s strong, and she feels like she’s learned something from it. “Try _not_ to do that in the future, alright?” he says. “Every time something goes wrong with you I lose a year of my lifespan.”

Scully decides she won’t take this too seriously. “Then you should probably be dead already.”

“I’m so glad you’re concerned.”

“Oh, please, Mulder,” she scoffs. “You’re practically indestructible. I think I could knock a brick over your head and you’d be fine.”

“I can’t tell if that was an insult or not.”

“Funny, neither can I.”

They fall quiet, their store of repartees spent, and for a moment, they just look at each other. Then Mulder clears his throat and stands, muttering something about the thermometer, and retreats into the kitchen. Scully counts to one hundred, then follows him.

“I was thinking about breakfast,” he says as she enters, shutting the refrigerator door, “but I don’t really have anything.”

“Anything?”

He grimaces. “Unless you count two-week-old bread and a can of miscellaneous nuts as ‘something.’”

“I don’t,” she says.

“I’ll walk to the corner store.”

“I’ll come.”

He looks slightly surprised, as if he can’t believe she already wants to be up and about. “Really?”

“Do you even know me?” she demands. “Besides, I refuse to be cooped up in this stuffy place all day. Why don’t you open some damn windows in here?”

He purses his lips, affronted, but doesn’t protest. “Get your coat, FBI woman.”

 

* * *

 

Scully has never quite gotten over how warm and rainy it still is in late fall in D.C. The air is still uncomfortably heavy and damp, and she has to jump over all the puddles that fill up the depressions in the sidewalks so the water doesn’t soak through her sneakers. It’s undignified, and Mulder is silently laughing at her, but it doesn’t matter. She thinks absently that this is possibly the least formally she’s ever been dressed out in public with him, and their task is definitely the most mundane thus far. It’s almost exciting, in a certain way that no X-file ever could be. It’s _life_.

More realistically speaking, it’s also pretty damn boring, so Scully’s mostly tuned out almost the entire time. She knows that Mulder noticed immediately, but he doesn’t bring it up, which she’s grateful for—the last thing she wants is to start an argument over something as menial as running an errand. In fact, the only things he’s said to her so far are “mosquito” (after he flicked her on the cheek) and “puddle” (after he stopped her from stepping in one), both amusingly apologetic. He’s sweet when he’s embarrassed.

The corner store is air-conditioned in that way that feels like it’s being sterilized, and it makes Scully even more uncomfortable than outside in the humidity. She peels off her jacket and immediately begins to shiver, gooseflesh running up and down her arms, but it’s better than the trapped, almost paralyzed feeling she gets otherwise. She follows Mulder around while trying not to look like she’s following him around, ignoring the faintly concerned glances he occasionally shoots her and reminding him what foods he needs to be a functioning adult. She focuses on the contents of the cramped aisles, the rows of colorful cereal boxes and off-brand condiments and juice with too much sugar, trying not to look at the floor or the ceiling. There’s something weird about this place.

She looks at Mulder, who is engrossed in the decision between penne and rigatoni. He clearly doesn’t think so.

“Are you ready yet?” Scully asks.

“Hm?” he says distractedly.

“Are you ready?” she repeats. “I want to leave.”

“Give me a minute.”

She gives him a minute. They walk down the freezer section. She gives him another minute, and another. She’s restless, on edge—it’s taking most her self-control not to lash out at him.

One of the lights in the freezer begins to flicker. She tightens her arms around herself and tries to ignore it, staring determinedly at Mulder’s black jacket, but she can’t help but feel like it was waiting for her. Like it _knew_ her.

 _That’s silly, Dana_.

Well, of course it’s silly. That doesn’t make it any less disconcerting.

Suddenly there’s a tiny _pop_ and a flash of light. Scully gasps and grabs Mulder’s wrist, hard.

“The bulb went out,” he says, frowning down at her. He shifts his hand so he’s holding her wrist instead, feeling for her pulse. “Scully, are you alright?”

“I just want to leave,” she says, twisting away from him. “I’ll—go wait outside.”

“I’ll walk you to the door,” Mulder offers.

“No,” she says sharply, and yanks her hand from his grip. It takes all the self-control she’s got left not to break into a run.

The natural air, while not exactly fresh, works wonders for her. In an instant her head is clear, and she looks at the building with some newfound awe, completely at a loss as to why it made her so skittish. She’s stopped shivering, and it’s obvious now that she hadn’t been breathing well at all in there. She paces back and forth, waiting for Mulder. He’s going to lose his shit.

But to her surprise, he doesn’t. In fact, he doesn’t say anything at all as he exits the store and approaches her, just hands her one of the grocery bags to hold and starts walking home. She has to jog a few paces to catch up with him, though she’s not sure she wants to. He seems almost angry. Why is he angry?

He feels so distant, so unapproachable right now that Scully can’t find it in her to say anything. They make it all the way back to his building and into number 42 without a word between them, and they put away Mulder’s groceries in equal silence. She leaves the English muffins and butter out on the table, even though it feels like they’re destined to go untouched. It seems like breakfast should have been hours ago, but the clock only says 8:43.

Scully knows she can’t be the first one to speak, so she waits, wondering what happened in such little time to make them completely switch extremes—now he’s the one that won’t explain anything. At this point, she’s stopped wondering about whatever happened last night, or early this morning. It happened, and now she’s here, and that’s all. She wishes Mulder would just do the same, though she knows he can’t. He doesn’t have it in him to let mysteries go unsolved.

She wonders how long it’ll take him to get over this. Not just today—all of it. How long will it haunt them? She doubts they even understand what happened yet, and Mulder will want to understand.

“Scully.”

She starts and glances at him—there’s something dark in his face. “Yes?”

There’s a short pause.

“Well?” he says curtly.

She takes a moment to respond. “Don’t worry about it.”

Mulder bristles, but he bites his tongue and retreats into the living room.

She doesn’t follow him. She butters an English muffin, eats half, and cleans up—if he wants anything, he can get it himself. She reads the paper and finishes the crossword he started at some point this morning, mostly out of spite. Finally, just when she’s starting to think this is getting excessive, he calls for her from the other room.

She takes a few long moments, but she gets up and stands in the doorway. “Yes, Mulder?”

He’s sitting on the couch like it’s a straight-backed wooden chair, and she can hear some sports game playing indistinctly on the television. Somehow in the light, he looks even worse than he did at 6 this morning. She doesn’t feel bad anymore.

“Sorry,” he says flatly.

She crosses her arms. “Are you done giving me the cold shoulder?”

“Are you done being uncooperative and childish?”

It’s like a slap in the face.

“Because if you are, I’d like to know what happened back there.”

Scully can’t believe her ears. “ _Excuse_ me?” she chokes out.

He just looks at her.

“I—I don’t even know where to begin,” she stammers as she steps into the room, almost laughing out of pure shock. “For one thing, it’s frankly astonishing you have the nerve to call _me_ childish when you’re here _bargaining_ for my attention, like—like some jealous schoolboy who thinks he’s entitled to—”

“Scully, please,” he interrupts. “This isn’t 1950.”

“You’re right,” she says, “it isn’t. It’s 1994, and in this day and age, we speak to women like they’re people. We _ask_ them when we want something from them, instead of just assuming they’ll _give_ it to us.”

“Oh, spare me the feminist rant—”

“I was waiting for _you!_ ” she cries. “I can’t read your mind, Mulder! Do you have any idea, any consciousness whatsoever about how you present yourself?”

He rubs his hands over his face. “What?”

“You looked so upset when you came out of that store,” she says, “so angry at whatever I did in there, you frightened me off before I had a chance to explain anything.”

“So you _can_ explain?”

She’s so frustrated she wants to tear out her hair. “That’s not the _point!_ ”

He stands, and Scully has to force herself not to step back to look up at him. “Of course it’s the point!” he shouts. “We both know you’re not alright, except for some reason you aren’t the least bit worried!”

“This is why I came to you,” she says bitterly, because suddenly it all makes sense. “I thought you wouldn’t do this.”

“Do _what?_ ” he spits. “Ask questions? You think I just _pretend_ to care about you?”

“Oh, stop. Don’t turn this into something it’s not.”

“Then what is it, Scully? Is this not about you refusing to accept my help?”

“There’s nothing _wrong_ with me!” she snarls. “When I wake up one morning and—and there’s blood coming out of my head then yeah, I’ll accept your help.”

He turns a shade paler, and she almost regrets saying it. “Is that really what it takes to pull us together?” he asks. “An X-file and a life-or-death situation?”

She leers at him. “ _Mulder_.”

“What happened to you last night?”

“I said, don’t worry about it!”

“Scully, how couldn’t I worry about it when all I’ve wanted to do since you woke up is hold you and make sure you’re not _dead?_ ”

He stops abruptly, looking horrified. She knows that is not what he meant to say.

And she realizes. She realizes now why he’s been so agitated, so insistent on getting to the bottom of this strange incident. This has never been about her at all—it’s about him.

He sinks back into the couch and puts his head in his hands, trembling, and Scully feels like something has clicked into place. She understands why there’s such a huge disparity between how she and Mulder have treated this X-file, because it is an X-file: she doesn’t know what happened. She doesn’t know what happened on Skyland Mountain, and she doesn’t know what happened after. She can’t remember being gone in any concrete way, but Mulder can. Mulder and Melissa and her mom—they were the ones who suffered through it. And maybe Scully is having brief dizzy spells and amnesiac episodes, but right now, Mulder’s a victim of her abduction, too, and he thinks he isn’t allowed to act like it.

He’s crying—she can hear him. She can hear how much he hates it.

They were both wrong, in some respect. The air of the room feels like it’s reached some kind of equilibrium, some tacit consensus that that was it. It’s over. She sits down next to him on the couch, leaving several inches of space between the two of them should he want it, but he closes the gap in an instant, whether deliberately or not. They lean into each other, in a complicated sort of way that makes it hard for Scully to tell if she’s holding Mulder or if he’s holding her. He hangs his head and breathes meaningfully, trying to put away his tears.

“Mulder,” she soothes, “I’m fine. I’m here now. Nothing bad is going to happen to me.”

He nods against her shoulder, fingers curling in the fuzzy hair at the nape of her neck. “I hope so.”

She sighs, not in an exasperated way, and says no more. For some number of minutes, they’re quiet.

Eventually, Mulder says, “I didn’t mean to be sexist.”

Scully frowns at him. “What?”

“I said, ‘Spare me the feminist rant.’ I didn’t mean that.”

There’s something so honestly contrite in his voice that it makes her chest tighten. “I appreciate it,” she says.

They fall silent again. For the first time in a while, Scully notices the TV program still playing faintly, some hockey game. It must be a rerun, since sports games aren’t broadcasted at 9:30 a.m.—or maybe they are, what does she know. Mulder’s begun to watch, too; she can feel him getting better, starting to clear his head. The game is almost over, and she sits with him until it’s finished.

The buzzer goes off, and someone’s won, and in another moment they’re listening to an obnoxious jingle for chocolate chips. Mulder makes a face and hits the mute button like his life depends on it. Scully almost laughs, but then she remembers her decision.

“I’m think I’m going to go home now, Mulder,” she tells him.

He gives her the kicked puppy look, seemingly unconsciously. “Why?”

“I think it’d be better for both of us,” she says gently.

“Can I drive y—”

“No,” she interrupts, maybe a little too harshly. She brushes his hair away from his face, then stands. “I’ll get there alright.”

He follows her to the door insistently; he doesn’t like this. “Will you call me when you’re home?”

“Yes, but not for long. I’m going to call my sister, too. And besides, you need air.”

He doesn’t like that either, but doesn’t protest. “Tell her I said hi.”

Scully smiles a little. “You two should talk more,” she says. “You have similar ideas about…things.”

“What kind of things?”

But she shakes her head. “I’m going now, Mulder.”

He pulls her into his arms again, his face in her hair, and Scully would hug him back but she’s afraid she’d lose the will to leave. “See you soon,” he murmurs.

She steps away slowly, and his hands trail down her arms until he can’t touch her any longer. “Bye now.”

She’s out the door and has nearly shut it behind her when she stops. “Oh, Mulder?”

He glances up. “Yes?”

It’s a difficult feeling to put into words, but she has to try. “Thanks.”

He hesitates—apparently he’s struggling with it, too. “This isn’t the start of a lifelong grudge between us, is it?” he asks.

“I hope not.”

“Me too.”

She chews her lip. “Then it won’t be.”

He nods. “Right.”

“Bye, Mulder.”

“Bye, Scully.”

She shuts the door, feeling better, even normal. It’s a long walk to where she’s going, but at least she knows where it is.

**Author's Note:**

> "nothing bad is going to happen to me" -famous last words of dana katherine scully
> 
> do you think I went...a little too heavy on the symbolism......


End file.
